Effects of Entertainment on Modern-Day Society

The release of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” a video game that draws heavily upon gang culture and violence, was a best-selling title in 2004. When playing this game, one can hear phrases such as, Move, bitch and, Ima bust a cap in yo punk ass. The game not only celebrates the gang lifestyle at a time when gang membership is rising nationwide, but makes a mockery of a tragedy thats all too real. This modern day entertainment, as one might call it, shown by video games, music, television, books, and blockbuster films, has the uncanny ability to destroy our society. It can invade and infect the minds of impressionable youth, encouraging drug-use, violence, and premarital sex. It can steal from perfectly good, law abiding citizens many hours of each day that would otherwise have been put to better use. Of course like many aspects in life, there is a good side to all this evil, which in this case comes in the form of educational programs and documentaries, where information is learned and people are educated. When looked upon from a broad point of view, todays entertainment is a plague upon society.

In November of 2008, an eight year old boy killed two men in his home; his father and the fathers friend. When investigating the case, the motive was a large aspect in the boys trial. According to those psychologists that had studied the case, violence found in fictional video games and movies most likely had a big part in this boys actions. But what are we doing to stop these potential killers we call entertainment? We are glorifying them and selling more to kids than ever before. With games such as Grand Theft Auto, childrens minds everywhere are becoming more and more acclimated to violence. The regular murder has been painted into a cliché picture that we all find to be similar in our heads: Someone gets shot; they fall to the ground and die. Society as we know it has seemed to forget about the blood, the screaming, and looking into that persons face as they slowly die at your will.

Not only is entertainment an advertisement for violence, but it also corrupts the way we think that society should be built. America, especially California, is portrayed in popular TV shows as a sunny, happy, luxurious place where if youre driving a car thats worth less than $60,000, you are considered to be low class. Take the hit TV show, The Hills, for example. In the show, life is depicted as an easy going, loving one, where the biggest problem that one deals with is that your boy friend cheated on you. This is painting a very fictional portrait of the real world, making societys youth, teenagers especially, less prone to intellectual or productive thought.

Many movies cunningly and sinisterly encourage drug use among youth. The movie Pineapple Express serves as little more than a 2 hour advertisement for drug dealers. It publicizes the view that drug use is cool and fun and even goes so far as to depict one of the main characters, Saul Silver (a regular marijuana-smoker) as an upright citizen. Such flagrant abuse of reality should not be sustained in a civilized society. It is a mockery that countless children and teenagers are allowed to be corrupted by movies such as these.

However, not all entertainment is set out to cause harm to your mind. When watching stations such as Animal Planet and the Discovery channel, one is learning countless facts and useful information, rather than watching a program based around fictional relationships. Documentaries such as Supersize Me, The Union, and Bigger, Faster, Stronger also serve a purpose that not only revolves around keeping the audience entertained every single second, but educating them as well.

Clearly, entertainment is one of the greatest evils in modern society. Almost all of the movies, video games, and music containing profanity and fictional ideas that flood the minds of the youth should be abolished. Then, perhaps, civilization will be able to grow and evolve until we achieve the social stature this country once had when our grandparents lived. Until then we will have a nation of drug using, wrist-cutting, racist children whom one day will be our leaders. Without a doubt, an America with such dire evils will seize to thrive.

“8-Year-Old Arizona Boy Kills Father.” CBS News.com. 8 Nov. 2008. Web. 1 Oct. 2009